Rev 6:6 NAS And I heard something like a voice in the center of the four living creatures saying, “A quart of wheat for a denarius, and three quarts of barley for a denarius; and do not damage the oil and the wine.”
Important Takeaways:
- Ukraine-Russia crisis could push inflation to 10% if conflict escalates
- Escalating Russia-Ukraine crisis could push oil prices to $120 a barrel
- Russia is the world’s second-largest producer of both oil and natural gas
- Germany already halted the certification of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline from Russia, while the U.S. and the European Union have floated potential sanctions against Moscow
- American and European officials fear that Russia may retaliate against the sanctions by cutting off the supply of oil and natural gas that flows from Moscow to Europe, sending prices spiraling higher.
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Matthew 24:6 “And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not alarmed, for this must take place, but the end is not yet.”
Important Takeaways:
- Cuba to deepen ties with Russia as Ukraine tensions mount
- In a statement, Cuba’s communist-run government expressed support for Russia as tensions mount in Ukraine, and accused long-time rival the United States and its allies of targeting Moscow with what it called a “propaganda war” and sanctions.
- Russia and Cuba will deepen ties and explore collaboration in transportation, energy, industry and banking, Cuba’s Foreign Ministry said late on Friday following a visit from Russia’s Deputy Prime Minister Yuri Borisov.
- Russia said in December that escalating tensions over Ukraine could lead to a repeat of the Cuban missile crisis, when the world stood on the brink of nuclear war
- Recently Putin launched exercises by strategic nuclear missile forces
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Matthew 24:6 “And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not alarmed, for this must take place, but the end is not yet.”
Important Takeaways:
- Putin’s Latest Crackdowns – A New Low
- While the world focuses on the tensions between Russia and Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin is in the midst of a massive crackdown on what remains of the opposition to his rule.
- In late December, Russia’s Supreme Court ordered International Memorial and its sister organization, Memorial Human Rights Centre, the oldest human rights groups in the country, to be forcibly closed down.
- International Memorial documented the political repression and historical crimes of the Soviet Union, including the Gulag prison-camp system, and commemorated its victims.
- Also in late December, a Russian court ordered the prison sentence of historian Yuri Dmitriev extended to 15 years. Dmitriev worked with International Memorial for three decades to uncover, among other things, mass graves from the era of Stalin’s rule.
- Now, in Putin’s most recent crackdown, anti-corruption activist and opposition leader Alexei Navalny, Putin’s fiercest critic — already serving a sentence of 3½ years in a penal colony on trumped up charges of fraud — is facing a new trial.
- Navalny’s foundation, and all associated organizations, were labeled “extremist” by a Moscow court and thereby effectively outlawed. The new charges could lead to up to 15 additional years in prison for Navalny
- In addition to putting Navalny on trial once more, Russian authorities are seeking to remove all references to Navalny’s anti-corruption work from media outlets, including references to Navalny and his team’s video report, “Putin’s Palace,” which was released in January 2021.
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Matthew 24:6 “And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not alarmed, for this must take place, but the end is not yet.”
Important Takeaways:
- Shelling intensifies in eastern Ukraine amid concern Russia’s creating a pretext for an invasion
- Ukrainian forces and the pro-Russian separatists they’re fighting in the country’s east reported a second day of increased shelling
- Western leaders say an escalation in the fighting in Ukraine’s Donbas region — which has simmered for almost eight years — could be part of Russian efforts to create a pretext to invade.
- America’s defense chief said the United States had still seen no drawdown of the Russian forces massed around Ukraine’s borders.
- The Russian deployment around Ukraine’s borders had actually swelled to between 169,000 and 190,000 troops — the biggest military buildup in Europe since World War II.
- On Thursday, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken gave a stark assessment of the situation to the U.N. Security Council, saying Washington believed Russia was planning a full-scale attack on Ukraine. He echoed what President Joe Biden had said, that the U.S. believes Russia is trying to manufacture an excuse for war.
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Matthew 24:6 “And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not alarmed, for this must take place, but the end is not yet.”
Important Takeaways:
- US: Russia Adds Troops Near Ukraine Despite Drawdown Claims
- As Ukrainians waved flags in a show of defiance of a feared Russian invasion, the United States reported that Moscow had added as many as 7,000 troops to forces stationed along the tense border — a warning that contradicted Kremlin declarations that military units were being pulled back.
- Western allies maintained that the threat of an attack was strong, with an estimated 150,000-plus Russian troops surrounding the country on three sides.
- The U.N. Security Council is scheduled to hold its annual meeting on the Minsk agreement on Thursday. Russia, which holds the rotating council presidency this month, will chair the meeting.
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Rev 6:6 NAS And I heard something like a voice in the center of the four living creatures saying, “A quart of wheat for a denarius, and three quarts of barley for a denarius; and do not damage the oil and the wine.”
Important Takeaways:
- Here comes $7 gas prices, warns oil strategist in dire outlook
- Drivers best start bracing for another surge in gas prices amid the conflict between Russia and Ukraine and years of under-investment by the oil industry, warns one veteran energy strategist.
- Energy Word founder Dan Dicker said on Yahoo Finance Live.
- “My guess is that you are going to see $5 a gallon at any triple-digit [oil prices] … as soon as you get to $100. And you might get to $6.50 or $7.
- Dicker said oil prices could shoot higher to $150 a barrel, or in line to the “super spike” highs from 2007.
- WTI crude oil has climbed 13% in the past month to $94 a barrel. Russia produces 10 million barrels of oil a day, the equivalent of 10% of global demand. Any loss of that oil due to geopolitical issues could cause a tightly supplied market to become tighter, pushing prices for the hydrocarbon up.
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Matthew 24:6 “And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not alarmed, for this must take place, but the end is not yet.”
Important Takeaways:
- Taiwan watching Ukraine crisis with ‘concern and anxiety,’ says top diplomat in U.S.
- Taipei’s representative in Washington, Bi-khim Hsiao, said “Like everyone else in the world, we are watching the situation with much concern and anxiety,” she said. “We certainly hope that the situation can be resolved peacefully through diplomatic means.
- Taiwan’s president, Tsai Ing-wen, said last month that her nation “empathized” with the plight of Ukrainians because of the military threat Taiwan faces from its powerful larger neighbor. She ordered the creation of a task force to study how tensions between Russia and Ukraine could affect Taiwan’s own long-running conflict with Beijing.
- Former U.S. officials say China will gauge the U.S. response to Russia as a possible guide to how Washington might counter a crisis over Taiwan.
- Hsiao said China has tried to wear down Taipei through pressure tactics, bullying and disinformation that stops short of outright military action, in what her government calls “gray zone warfare.”
- “The Chinese have also been launching cyberattacks, disinformation, cognitive and psychological warfare on the people of Taiwan, aimed at weakening our resolve to our self-defense and also trying to sow divisions within our society,” Hsiao said.
- Governments that have refused to sever ties with Taiwan or that have criticized Beijing have faced economic retaliation from China, including those of Lithuania and Australia, she said. Democratic countries need to rally, she said, and show China that Beijing’s “coercion” will not succeed.
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Matthew 24:6 “And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not alarmed, for this must take place, but the end is not yet.”
Important Takeaways:
- Cyberattacks knock out sites of Ukrainian army, major banks
- At least 10 Ukrainian websites were unreachable due to the attacks, including the defense, foreign and culture ministries and Ukraine’s two largest state banks. In such attacks, websites are barraged with a flood of junk data packets, rendering them unreachable.
- Among the attackers’ targets was the hosting provider for Ukraine’s army and Privatbank, said Doug Madory, director of internet analysis at the network management firm Kentik Inc.
- It was too early to say who was behind the attack, he added.
- The cyber aggression is nevertheless typical of Russian President Vladimir Putin, who likes to try to keep his adversaries off balance.
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Proverbs 22:8 “Whoever sows injustice will reap calamity, and the rod of his fury will fail.”
Important Takeaways:
- El Salvador President on Ukraine: ‘The Real War Is in Canada’
- Nayib Bukele, the president of El Salvador, said on Sunday the crisis in Ukraine is just a distraction, while the “real war” of interest to free people around the world is being fought over authoritarian coronavirus mandates in Europe, Canada, and the United States.
- Bukele is quick to call out authoritarian behavior in North America and Europe, perhaps because he has been accused of authoritarianism himself, so he views his critics as hypocrites. For example, in February 2020 Bukele sent troops into the El Salvadoran parliament to pressure lawmakers into voting for a bill that would fund his programs against gang violence.
- Bukele was especially horrified by footage of French riot police rolling in armored vehicles against a protest styled after Canada’s Freedom Convoy demonstrations
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Matthew 24:6 “And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not alarmed, for this must take place, but the end is not yet.”
Important Takeaways:
- US: Over 130,000 Russian troops now staged outside Ukraine
- Some airlines canceled flights to the Ukrainian capital and troops there unloaded fresh shipments of weapons from NATO
- President Volodymyr Zelenskyy spoke to President Joe Biden for about an hour, insisting that Ukrainians had the country under “safe and reliable protection” against feared attack by a far stronger Russian military, aides said afterward. The White House said both agreed to keep pushing both deterrence and diplomacy to try to stave off a feared Russian military offensive.
- S. and European intelligence findings in recent days have sparked worries that Russia may try to target a scheduled Ukrainian military exercise slated for Tuesday in eastern Ukraine to launch such a “false-flag operation,” according to two people familiar with the matter. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about it.
- The United States was pulling most of its staff from the embassy in Kyiv and urged all American citizens to leave Ukraine immediately. Britain joined other European nations in telling its citizens to leave.
- Russia and Ukraine have been locked in a bitter conflict since 2014, when Ukraine’s Kremlin-friendly leader was driven from office by a popular uprising. Moscow responded by annexing the Crimean Peninsula and then backing a separatist insurgency in eastern Ukraine, where fighting has killed over 14,000 people.
- S. officials in recent days that Russia could be planning to invade as soon as midweek.
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